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Buying a new laptop

But the problem with this is that I can't do anything mobile as this is a more of a desktop replacement, that i can move around with me yet can't use when im out. I also gave my new MacBook to my wife, as she didn't have a laptop and I didn't really mind. I've been trying to find a decent laptop at no more then $1150 though would like to find something closer to the $700 range. Yet specs at that range aren't exactly that great. Somethings I'm looking for are; 3-6 hours battery life, compatible with BackTrack 5 (the wireless driver needs to support injection), and if the specs are closer to the higher end I'd like to see i5 with 4-6GB of ram. And rather not have an on board gfx card. I have found a good amount of laptops on amazon and if anyone has some ideas it would be a great help.

As a caveat, HP has announced that they are exiting the PC business. I've had good luck with business class HP machines, but my daughter's consumer grade machines have all failed (disk controller) at the 15 month mark.

feck it
you have a nice decent budget
you seem to know a little about lappies too :P
so get stuck into your local PC palace
and rip the pee out of the staff there
whilst fondling as many lappies as ya can
make a day of it
take a picnic :P

55 - I'm fiftyfeckinfive and STILL no wiser,
OLDER yes
Beware of Geeks bearing GIF's
come and waste the day :P at The Taz Zone

I've been partial to Toshiba, but lately they seem like they're going the HP or Dell route.

Dunno about that mate, I haven't finished with my 486/75MHz one yet . It still kills aliens like a good'un

My thinkpad PIII/533 cost GBP10.............that's the most (and total) I have ever paid for, or pretty much would be willing to, for a craptop. My bro-in-law in Alabama bought the new one for my 60th ...........or for his sister on my 60th.??????????????

My Laptop is a Dell Inspiron I bought back when I was working and going to school. To keep the price down, I concentrated on making it decent, but, kept a few things in mind:

When I bought it, it was coming default with a shitty Battery. The problem there, is that a Laptop, no matter how good, isn't all that great if you need to plug it in to use it. so I spent the extra money to get Lithium Ion. Today I doubt this is even an issue, but, I did spend more cash for a better Battery.

The other "upgrade" I selected, was the video card; I spent extra and got an Nvidia Card for it, as the Intel card it was coming with, didn't really make me want it.

I got a normal DVD-ROM drive instead of a Burner, as that saved me some money, and, the HD is only 30 GBs, which, even though that isn't a lot, I have lots of disk space it can share, so it's not an issue for me. I have an FTP Server, a USB HD that's 80 GBs, a 1 GB Thumb Drive, an 8 GB thumb Drive, and, we recently got a 250 GB Passport Portable USB HD, for 29.99. So I wasn't worried about that.

It's got 512 MBs of RAM, and an Intel Pentium 4 - M @ 3.06 GHz. Works nice for me. My Wife's Laptop is way better, and with the prices of today, your budget price, should get you quite a decent Laptop.

Just remember that in a Laptop that you'd like to actually be mobile, you're prbably going to have to make sure that Battery, REAL Video Card, and RAM, should matter more than Processor Speed itself. The Processor, I'd personally take a slower one in a Laptop, as it usually means less heat, and, of course, getting something that doesn't run hot to begin with helps too.

That's actually a pretty good idea too. If I was personally buying a new Laptop, this is more or less what I'd do:

First, your budget is actually pretty high compared to what I'm used to helping people deal with (Like Students and so on who don't have a whole lot of money, but need a Laptop they can use for school) and so in that area, I think you've got more than enough for a VERY nice Laptop.

If I was picking out something for myself, I'd want either a Dell or an HP. I can't say one bad thing about HP Computers; The first Computer I EVER bought, was an HP Pavilion, whcih I know I've brought up somewhere before, but I haven't ever had issues.

In fact, I bought that Computer like right before 2000 hit, and, I didn't have ONE issue with it hardware wise until a few years ago the video card started going on me. And considering how heavy I used the thing, I was surprised nothing else happened.

The video card on it started getting bad on me, and recently, it started to REALLY go, but considering I've had that Computer for 11 years.... It's a LITTLE hard to complain about it. So I can say that much about HP.

My personal Laptop, is a Dell, and this machine is also a Dell, as is one of my Wife's Desktops. We haven't really had any issues there either which is why I said Dell or HP would be my choice.

As for hardware, I'd personally want something like this:

SSD for the HD, decent Intel based Processor that is made for Laptops so you have less power consumption and all that, and a REAL video card of course, since I can't stand on board anything.

I'd basically get the best Battery I could get, the better Video Card, and as much RAM as you can afford to put into it.

But the problem with this is that I can't do anything mobile as this is a more of a desktop replacement, that i can move around with me yet can't use when im out.

and:

Somethings I'm looking for are; 3-6 hours battery life, compatible with BackTrack 5 (the wireless driver needs to support injection), and if the specs are closer to the higher end I'd like to see i5 with 4-6GB of ram.

The requirement would seem to be for a road warrior's toolbox with penetration testing in mind?

The problem with laptops is that they are pretty much WYSIWYG, and not as flexible as desktops in the specs offered by OEMs.

You get the "portable desktop" throughout the price spectrum, with all low end machines being portable desktops, as are the very high end gaming offerings.

Battery life will be abysmal at the low end due to cost, and at the high (gaming) end, due to power consumption.

A good example would be my Compaq CQ61US (yeah! a grey import ) I guess it had a battery life of around 90 minutes straight out of the box. Lenovo, Acer, Dell and Toshiba competitors seem pretty much the same, from the ones I have worked on.

Some random considerations on the matter:

1. OEM kit is built to price rather than performance. Just talk to a salesperson in a retail store and you will see what I mean........they know Jack ****.

2. A lot of these battery life figures are based on the kit running at half ****, in battery saving mode, so an i5 or better is a waste of money, as anything from Intel frequently is. There is a distinct tradeoff between performance and stamina here. Like do you buy a Porsche and always drive it in first gear?

3. Laptop onboard graphics work just fine if you get the right ones....I personally like the ATI/AMD 4200 series. Mine gets a score of 4.6 out of 7.9 on the Windows 7 experience meter. Hell, you don't need fancy graphics for a road warrior's toolbox!.............you are not surfing pr0n or playing games are you?

4. You can buy a more powerful battery.........like one for my Compaq would cost GBP120............... that's around 50% of the entire cost of the machine!!!

5. You might be able to get an extension base that will take extra batteries/HDDs

6. You can get a battery charger and spare battery/ies

7. Go for a smaller screen, unless you are going to do your wardriving in a used Google spy car

8. Look for a solid state HDD or at least a hybrid. You don't need a lot of disk space on a truly portable road warrior's toolbox. If you get an extension base you can swap the two drives over, if it comes with a standard HDD.

9. Don't get Windows 7 Ultimate, and turn off all the eye candy, as you don't need it on a professional machine. Assuming a dual boot scenario, of course. If you are intending to boot *nix distros only then you need to look at what will work with them...........most OEM kit is intended for Windows only

10. If Backtrack 5 is that important, that is probably what will limit your choice. You need to prioritise your requirements like this: